Govt's ‘fault’ for broadband tardiness

Survey of business

British businesses - or 100 or so, at any rate - blame the government for "failing to deliver broadband to the nation".

In a survey of 122 businesses, 93 per cent said British broadband tardiness was the government's fault.(See, not everyone hates BT.)

All told, British businesses are unimpressed with th government's efforts to promote e-business, as these findings from the OnceStopClick.com-sponsored survey show:

88 per cent don't believe enough has been done to promote the importance of e-business to traditional businesses

Only half (47 per cent) have heard of the joint government/industry initiative UK Online for Business

Just 15 per cent of businesses think Labour's e-business strategy is successful

All of which goes to show that small businesses (we assume that most respondents are small businesses) are capable of whingeing just as much as farmers. And maybe with less reason. Broadband for all - and for a reasonable price - may provide the greatest sales kicker to e-retailing giant. Or maybe not. But what relevance does the availability or otherwise of consumer broadband have for, the business to business sectors?

OneStopClick.com, a quotation service, has a bee in its bonnet about the government's performance, marking it 'F' for e-business. It attacks the government's failure to bring broadband access for all and it slams the government for employing a junior minister only to represent the interests of ecommerce.

Now OneStopClick.com has written to "all the major political parties in a bid to make them say how they intend to make Britain a truly digital economy".